Pasir Ris and Tampines Hike

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Visit the lovely coastal park of Pasir Ris and the wonderfully natural Tampines Eco Green on this great half-day hike.

Location

This hike starts at Pasir Ris MRT on the Green East-West Line. Take Exit A here. This is a one-way hike and leads to Tampines MRT, on both the Green and Blue Downtown Lines, where Exit E is the most convenient.

Pasir Ris and Tampines Walk Map

Get the route by downloading the .gpx or .kml file below. For navigation with Maps.me on your mobile phone, simply download the .kml file and open to add it to the Maps.me bookmarks.

From Pasir Ris MRT station, take exit A and head to the main road before turning left. Cross the large road and you’re at the edge of Pasir Ris Park.

Pasir Ris Park

Pasir Ris Park was opened in 1986 on reclaimed swampland. The nice coastline led the rich of the past to build holiday bungalows along the shoreline in the 19th century. Today it’s a lovely park with mangroves, ponds, coastline and beautiful trees.

Head towards the car park, but take the small path beforehand on your right, and then shortly left. Follow this and you’ll soon reach a lovely pond. We saw a juvenile bird of prey here, and there were many people with huge camera lenses taking photos, as there were throughout this park.

After the pond, the trail becomes a boardwalk as it winds its way through wild mangrove forests. There’s a viewing deck to the right on the edge of the Tampines River and a tall observation tower on the other side of the mangroves.

The Observation Tower

From the top of the observation tower, the views over the forest are great – it looks like you could be in the middle of the deepest darkest jungle, not an HDB in sight.

Continue walking towards the ocean and you’ll soon come across the palm trees and huge rain trees that characterise Pasir Ris Park.

At the coast, head left (west) and you’ll reach a large bridge traversing the Sungei Api Api (Sungei means River in Malay, and Api Api is a type of mangrove tree). As you walk, look up and keep your eyes peeled for colourful birds as there are many in Pasir Ris.

Continue across the bridge and down to the end of the park, where you can walk no further. There are more beautiful trees, birds and colourful flowers, along with views across the calm, blue Straits of Johor to Pulau Ubin and Malaysia.

Make a U-turn and start returning towards the bridge. You can choose to walk along the same path, or more inland on the other side of a large children’s play area.

After you cross the bridge again, head right through beautiful rain trees and eventually make your way back through the mangrove forest. Instead of leaving where you entered, head to the Tampines River and continue along its banks. It’s slightly ugly for a little while, but after a few hundred meters you reach Pasir Ris Town Park.

Pasir Ris Town Park and Tampines River

Pasir Ris Town Park is dominated by a large fishing pond, though has lots of tropical palm trees and some nice open areas. As you enter the park, there’s a hawkers centre 100 m to your right where you can buy food if you’re hungry.

As you walk along the river, the park is on your right while across the river are some HDB flats, some of which have interesting Tudor-style black and white detailing.

At the end of the park, the trail crosses a road and continues by the river. After a few hundred metres you’ll see a blue pedestrian bridge that you have to cross. After this, you soon turn left to walk up a pedestrian bridge that crosses a large highway and leads into a small park area. From here, head right back across a small river and you’ll enter Tampines Eco Green.

Tampines Eco Green

Tampines Eco Green is unlike most other parks in Singapore: the trails are unpaved and there are very few people hiking in the park. I’m not sure why as Tampines Eco Green is lovely – one of the most natural parks I’ve found in the entire country. There are no F&B outlets, no children’s play areas, and only a few information boards and wooden signs dotted around the place.

Head around the outside of the park on the Diversity Trail. We saw a few little birds in the marshland, and there is also a well-designed bird hide. Further along, there’s a pond where we saw some wading birds, and directly after this pond, we turned left along the Marsh Trail. The path was beautiful here, completely surrounded by trees.

At the next path junction, head right (southwest) towards the southern exit of Tampines Eco Green. Once out of the park, head left (south) along the road to cross a river and a main road into Sun Plaza Park.

Make your way through Sun Plaza Park, either winding through the gardens or straight underneath the MRT. Once you leave the park, it’s the end of this hike.

There are then several options to reach public transport depending on where you are heading next. Tampines MRT, on the Blue Downtown and Green East-West Lines is a few hundred metres away. Alternatively, there is a bus stop just as you leave the park.

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Want to hike some more? Check out more great hikes in Singapore.